


Before the Fall: on Martine and Samaritan

by Hagar



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Character Analysis, Gen, Meta, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 05:50:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5485931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/pseuds/Hagar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claire Mahoney may be lampshaded as the dark mirror of the Machine's avatar of choice, Samaritan may have chosen the boy Gabriel as its avatar, but it's Martine Rouseau who's written and presented as Samaritan in human form.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before the Fall: on Martine and Samaritan

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Grimview](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grimview/gifts), [grimorie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grimorie/gifts).



> Adapted from [this](http://hagar-972.tumblr.com/post/117872963679/lets-talk-about-martine) tumblr post.

###### Angel of Death

There are a few things we learn about Martine Rousseau as soon as we meet her: she's attractive, she's fighting for Samaritan, and she's deadly. The second time she appears in the same episode (s04e01 Panopticon) we learn she changes names and identities with the ease of the trained. This is impression underscored in the second episode in which she appear (s04e05 Prophets): not only does Martine assassinate a public figure with stable hands, but she does so in broad daylight and a public setting. Martine Rousseau is presented as Samaritan's Angel of Death, a woman of a thousand faces who is always as self-assured as she is deadly; that is, in the extreme.

The detached deadliness makes it easy to think that before Samaritan Martine may have a soldier or a spy, not unlike Marine-captain-come-CIA-agent Kara Stanton. However, that doesn't quite line up. Many of the characters in _Person of Interest_ are soldiers, intelligence or both. More specifically, Joss Carter, Kara Stanton, Alycia Corwin, Sameen Shaw and Control are all at least one of military or intelligence (at least half of them are both) - and those are only the women. The show provided us with a rich and nuanced vocabulary of the ways it characterizes military and intelligence characters, making it easier to determine that Martine Rousseau just doesn't belong. Two things make her stand out: her arrogance and the ease with which she operates in the open, manifestly unwary of detection. There's no need to explain why the latter does not match, but I imagine that to most of my readers the former (her arrogance) makes no sense at all. After all, Kara was copiously arrogant and Greer's hubris is often commented upon - and that's to say nothing of John. And yet, Martine stands out. 

Arrogance is not unheard of among real-life Special Forces and non-uniformed civilian personnel. (Some of my "favorite" examples include Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and Naphtali Bennet, all of whom are Sayeret Matkal alumni with the reputation of being arrogant.) However, this is considered an aberration, the exception rather than the rule: most anyone who's worked with Special Forces (or Special Operations Forces; hereby abbreviated SF/SOF) will say that most of those people are quiet, considerate and deeply kind - and the most terrifying of them, the ones whose eyes make ice run down your spine, are often the kindest of all. Greer still carries this with him, testimony for how deeply this is trained into people (and how useful it is): consider his jovial manner, or his treatment of Grace. Arrogant and self-assured as he is, Greer still pays attention - and so did Kara, when she wasn't blinded by rage. Both of them - and John too - illustrate the way arrogance typically shows in those who walk in the dark: it's borne of awareness of one's exceptional skill, as tested by experience over and over again. Greer has decades and decades of experience; Kara was counter-intelligence, trained to deceive her own kind; and John's seeming arrogance is, mostly, an expression of his exasperation when facing circumstances or enemies he (accurately) judges to be no match to him. In contrast, Martine seems to just not _care._

Another possibility is that Martine used to be some sort of high-end police (e.g. SWAT). This possibility is strengthened two different ways in s04e05 Prophets. The gun she uses is of a model originally created for law enforcement use, some of its sub-models not sold on the civilian market to date (discussed [here](http://hagar-972.tumblr.com/post/100895440449/isagrimorie-hagar-972-isagrimorie)); and the way she's dressed is evocative of the way non-military high-end security forces do, when they don't need to hide themselves behind a suit and a tie. However, suit-and-tie _is_ the norm for such forces in most Western countries - and then there's the matter of what's revealed of Martine in the third episode in which she appears, s04e08 Point of Origin. This is the episode in which we're told she used to work at "the Hague" (which could mean any of a number of things - see breakdown and analysis [here](http://amidstthetrees.tumblr.com/post/103075479232/person-of-interest-ramblings-martine-rousseau-edition)). The instinctive association the city of the Hague has (in this context) is investigation into and prosecution of crimes against humanity (and other crimes of war). This is terribly ironic given the power Martine now serves (consider the methods employed in the town of Maple - or that Samaritan's disregard for human agency pulls the rug from under any and all arguments for human rights), and moreso given the methods she employs in this episode. Indeed, Martine's handling of Katja, Romeo and "Elvis" is far more revealing than her previous employment.

Katja is vulnerable: she's in prison and dependent on outside help. The only person from which she has any reasonable exception to receive help is her lawyer - who is suddenly replaced by this nameless stranger. Like "Mini", a woman like Katja knows a killer when she sees one - but that's not the sort of thread Martine poses, here. The stranger who removed Katja's only support and so isolated her is not just nameless: she's also fully of what of the meaning of what she's done, and so utterly confident in herself and her immunity she's willing to let her victim (namely, Katja) see this knowledge (and, implied, the self-assuredness). No, she does more than let Katja see: she _flaunts_. When John shows off, he lets his opponents see his superior skill; what Martine does with Katja is different. Recall that those are _trained_ behaviors rather than personal quirks. Martine flaunts her confidence as means to force Katja's hand, another tool in her kit, and that speaks to her training and background. The exact same pattern repeats when she confronts Romeo (and "Elvis") at the bar: the way Martine handles herself is not meant to show her superior skill as such, but rather to present her as being in control and so give her power over her subjects.

This clinches the pattern of what Martine _is_ : she's HUMINT, but unlike any HUMINT operative previously seen on this show. (For an explanation of the acronym HUMINT, see [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1789951/chapters/3836464).) Martine is the Secret Police.

###### Shadow

Most non-military intelligence personnel in _Person of Interest_ are of the kind John called "international spies". Emphasis "international": these are the people who only ever operate (as Kara reminded John) behind enemy lines, without support of backup, everyone around them a danger. Indeed, most intelligence agencies operate outside the borders of their own countries. This is but one of the differences between intelligence and law enforcement. This is not to say that law enforcement doesn't deal in intelligence: surveillance, wiretapping and the recruitment and handling of informants are all intelligence activities routinely executed in law enforcement. However, the job entrusted to these two kinds of organizations is different, and their choice of means is also - accordingly - different.

The job of law enforcement is to identify persons who had already done something (illegal, that is), and obtain such evidence against those persons that should enable to convict them in a Court of Law. The job of intelligence agencies is to thwart potential attacks before they occur. Consider, for example, the real-life Stuxnet computer virus which sabotaged Iran's nuclear industry. (For a fictional example, consider the _Leverage_ episode s04e10 The Queen's Gambit Job.) The "soft" indirectness of Stuxnet is typical of intelligence activity; assassinations and other "loud" actions are to be avoided as much as possible. Intelligence is not meant to be noticed; law and justice are. Similarly, the data based on which intelligence action is authorized is not (ordinarily) a matter of public record - whereas criminal evidence and police procedure are. Police intelligence-gathering can be illegal, in which case it's inadmissible in court and cannot be used to prosecute offenders; but the agents of one country do not request permission by the laws of another, when they wiretap one of the latter's citizens, or covertly search their home. Indeed, they'd be arrested should they be caught.

Not all intelligence activity is international, though. All countries have need for domestic intelligence, such as counter-espionage or counter-terrorism. Each country has its own way about institutionalizing this activity, whether as its own organization (in which case it's considered an intelligence or security agency) or as part of a law enforcement agency. Democratic societies have vested interest in thorough regulation of domestic intelligence; left unchecked, domestic intelligence is the stuff of nightmares. That's the cultural trope of the Secret Police: the government's shadowy arm, insinuated into every aspect of daily life, a force that cannot be seen or predicted or - worst of all - argued with. Indeed, a Secret Police is a necessary tool for a totalitarian regime; how else may it achieve _total_ control of its citizens?

All countries have some need for domestic intelligence - it's rather recommended to catch terrorists before they act, or traitors and spies before they do too much damage. Whether part of law enforcement or its own agency, such activities are usually under judicial review in a way non-domestic intelligence activities aren't. Domestic intelligence isn't necessarily a bad thing - but the potential for that makes it terrifying by nature. A Secret Police is domestic intelligence unchecked: its agents are everyone, they're everyone and no one, and you never know who might be grabbed when or for what - or if the evidence against them is true. A Secret Police is a tool identified with totalitarian regimes and police states.

Now let us consider Martine again. Unlike the "international spies", Martine does not act as if she's behind enemy lines; what intelligence she collects (and acts upon) isn't for unknown and distant purposes, but for the elimination of present and concrete threats. She has no fear of reprimand or public overview, yet she presents herself as if there's a recognized authority she has a recognized authority riding on her shoulder; her arrogant, self-assured front is part the source of her power over her targets. These characteristics are confusing and contradictory if we only consider the options of "international spies" and domestic law-enforcement. The answer is that Martine is neither: she's domestic intelligence, an agent of a shadowy and omnipresent force whose job is to ferret out enemies from within and remove them quietly. Most democratic countries don't have powerful domestic intelligence agencies, mostly due to lack of need. It's possible Martine first acquired this mode of behavior by being part of an international force, any of those headquartered out of the Hague; multi- or inter-national forces are typically in the awkward situation of being nominally law-enforcing or peace-keepers, yet resented and undesired by their host country. Many of these agencies are also neither clearly law-keeping nor military, but some mix thereof. (Consider the sort of work required to bring war criminals to justice: it's the job of officers of the law, in the military arena.) An agent of authority with (deep and completely casual) disregard for the sovereignty of nation-states, not quite any of law-keeper, soldier or intelligence yet something of all three - that's Martine: domestic intelligence.

Whoever Martine used to work for, though, she no longer does: she works for Samaritan now. Like Greer, she doesn't care for the sovereignty of the state, any state. But there's more to Martine's transition then there was to Greer's. The agencies headquartered out of the Hague are mostly concerned not with any kind of international crime, but with crimes of war in particular. The notions of crimes of war and crimes against humanity as laid out in international law stem from an ethics to which human rights and human dignity are core values. In contrast, Samaritan doesn't care at all about human rights and dignity; it conceives of human suffering in much the same way many humans do of cruelty to animals. Greer never had any formal loyalty to human agency - but Martine most likely did: she's crossed over from the side of those who hunt the perpetrators of crimes against humanity, and became a perpetrator herself. Martine Rousseau isn't any domestic intelligence agent: she's Samaritan's Secret Police.

In a show full of dangerous people capable of terrible things, Martine Rousseau might be the most terrifying of them all. Her capacity for harm is not (and possibly never has been) directed against some "enemy" or an "other". Rather, she polices a community nominally her own, a community the authority she serves laid a claim to - using means considered ethically dubious at best when directed at out-and-out enemies. (In the documentary movie _The Gatekeepers_ , retired directors of Israel's domestic intelligence agency reflect upon the means it employs. By and large, they consider those means a necessary evil. Some express stronger views - and have, after their retirement, taken public stance and actions on the matter.) It would be exceedingly difficult to claim Martine isn't aware of what she is, or what means she uses.

###### The Hand of God

Claire Mahoney is explicitly called out in the text of the show as being similar to Root, the Machine's voice and avatar. (Personally I'd argue she's more similar to Harold, but that's another matter.) Samaritan's avatar of choice is the boy Gabriel. However, neither Claire nor Gabriel is _like_ Samaritan is any substantial way. If anything, they stand for the ones Samaritan on whose interest Samaritan claims to act: the young, the misplaced, those who desire protection or require nurturing. Samaritan chose both of them; but Claire's choice of Samaritan was guided by partial (if not misleading) information, and Gabriel is too young for meaningful consent. As for Greer, he chose Samaritan before Samaritan was in position to make choices of its own.

Martine is entrusted with removing critical threats to Samaritan's existence, a job which the Machine trusts to Root or Shaw (and sometimes the two of them together). We don't know how Martine came to be Samaritan's Hand of God - if she worked for Decima before, or only came on board after; we don't know if she was approached by Greer, or Samaritan, or found her way to them on her own. We also don't know what drove her to cross the lines: has she always been ill-fitting for protecting human agency, or was that a change that took time? Either way, we know this: she was already a high-achieving adult. It doesn't matter who chose whom; even if it was Samaritan who sought Martine out and not the other way around, Martine is as she shaped herself. Moreover, the job Samaritan entrusted to Martine is the one most fundamentally identified with totalitarian forces: to protect from within.

To understand why this matters we need to look not only at where Martine succeeds, but also at where she fails. Consider when she approached Fusco at the precinct, and he immediately recognizes she's not what she claims to be (s04e09 The Devil You Know). At that point, Martine has been "passing" among law enforcement for some time; that Fusco pinged to her is not only because he hadn't found that badge in a cereal box but rather earned it by right. Fusco had been a dirty cop "passing" among good ones, a good cop among dirty ones and multiple other variations on the theme. To survive in his complicated and ever-changing situation, Fusco had to develop keen senses for the ways people display their in-group status and leverage it for authority (as well as a skill in doing so himself). This gives Fusco a crucial edge in honing it at the signal indicating that whatever Martine claims to be (and she's easy to mistake for a spy or a cop), she's not.

As for the other time Martine failed, she died for it: she'd underestimated Root, and Root snapped her neck (s04e21). Root is one of two people to whom the Machine entrusts the same kind of a job that Samaritan does to Martine. Root is also another person who weaponizes her self-confidence - or she used to, before she changed. What made Root so incredibly dangerous an adversary wasn't her computer-hacking but her _people_ -hacking, her fine-tuned understanding of the methodology of carrot and stick; and when Root explained herself to her victims, that wasn't a villain's ego-boosting gloating but a tactical decision. Like Martine, Root relies on knowing people inside and out; like Martine, Root weaponizes her self-assurance to cow and strike owe; and unlike Martine, Root doesn't buy into her own hype. Martine bought into the image she projected: she underestimated Root, and that was a mistake. Root, for her part, is full of doubt - but that lets her take other people in more fully, which lets her better anticipates them.

Root and the Machine chose each other; Martine and Samaritan might as well had. In the conversation between their human avatars, Samaritan uses its total self-confidence as a weapon, and mocks the Machine for doubts, for hesitation for wavering. Martine was killed because she believed in her superiority; self-doubt and openness to others let Root live. It seems to me that in _Person of Interest_ 's narrative discourse of pride and humility, this speaks for itself.


End file.
